시금치 무침 / Sigeumchi muchim (dressed spinach)
I’m pretty sure that this simple preparation of spinach is familiar to many people with Korean backgrounds reading this: blanching, squeezing out the liquid, and dressing.
It’s one of the first Korean dishes I learned how to make when first moving out of my parents’ home and making my baby steps into the vast world of Korean vegetable preparations. I tried many all the different recipes I could find online, and watched a ton of YT videos. But over the years it never turned out the way it should—the way it tasted at my parents’ table, or at restaurants, and most importantly, the way I’ve come to like it. Looking back, I was always unhappy with the texture, or the seasoning was too strong or too weak.
So, I hovered over my mom when she prepared sigeumchi muchim during my last visit to Los Angeles. She doesn’t use anything other than soy sauce and sesame oil for the seasoning. It has to be good soy sauce and good sesame oil - finger-licking good when you taste them on their own.
I asked her about garlic, seen commonly included in recipes for this dish. “I don’t use garlic for spinach. When you use garlic, you lose the intensity of the spinach flavor,” she told me with emphasis. After squeezing out the liquid in the blanched spinach, she added the sesame oil first, which she noted is important, to allow for the soy sauce that you add afterward to cling to the oil rather than hitting the greens directly. Then, very carefully, she seasoned the spinach with chopsticks, as opposed to directly dressing with her hands, to avoid keeping the delicate greens intact. Lastly, she added a generous spoon of toasted sesame seeds, then seasoned the spinach with the chopsticks a little bit more, and was finished.
I took notes and copied her method in my kitchen in Munich, and this will be my way of making them from now on. Here it is, how our family likes sigeumchi muchim.
Ingredients list:
-1 big bunch mature Spinach, or about 300-400 grams (Spinach doesn’t keep very long. Use it within 1-2 days of purchasing; preferably on the day of.)
-1 tablespoon sesame oil
-1 tablespoon Korean soup soy sauce
-1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
Prepare the spinach. Wash in a big bowl of fresh cold water, replenishing with new water 2-3 times at least to remove all the dirt. We’ll use the root ends too - they are delicious, my favorite part - so make sure to spect them well, cleaning out the dirt and using a knife to pare out any bad looking bits. Then arrange the the spinach into rows and cut them into approximately 12 cm / 5 in long pieces. Cut the root ends into smaller pieces - about 3 cm / 1-2 inch pieces.
Prepare a pot big enough to hold the spinach and fill it with water and bring to a boil. Bring the heat down to a good simmer, and add the cleaned spinach. Leave the spinach in the pot for a little less than a minute, then remove the leaves and set them in a colander / drainer. Let the stems and root ends sit in the pot a little bit longer - around 30 seconds more. Then remove those and set them in the colander to drain as well.
When the spinach has cooled enough for your hands to touch them, give them a good, careful, squeeze. Do this one or two more times. Then set them in a bowl.
Add the sesame oil. Then add the Korean soup soy sauce. Mix with a chopstick carefully, avoid shredding the spinach as much as possible. Add toasted sesame seeds and continue to mix / season.
Serve with rice.
